.axing without consent in Parliament, seem not to awaken the indignation of England; rather almost the gratitude and confi dence of England. Next year, we have 'Letters of great appearances of the Country at the Assizes; and how the Gentlemen of the greatest quality served on Grand Juries; which is fit to be observed.'*

We mention, but cannot dwell upon it, another trait belonging to those Spring Months of 1665: the quarrel my Lord Protector had in regard to his Ordinance for the Reform of Chancery. Ordinance passed merely by the Protector in Council; never confirmed by any Parliament; which nevertheless he insists upon having obeyed. How our learned Bulstrode, learned Widdrington, two of the Keepers of the Great Seal, durst not obey; and Lisle the other Keeper durst ;—and Old-Speaker Lenthall, Master of the Rolls, "would be hanged at the Rolls Gate before he would obey." What profound consults there were among us; buzz in the Profession, in the Public generally. And then how Oliver Protector, with delicate patient bridle-hand and yet with resolute spur, made us all obey, or else go out of that,—which latter step Bulstrode and Widdrington, with a sublime conscientious feeling, preferred to take, the big heart saying to itself, "I have lost a thousand pounds a-year!" And Lenthall, for all his bragging, was not hanged at the Rolls Gate; but kept his skin whole, and his salary whole, and did as he was bidden. The buzz in the Profession, notwithstanding much abatement of fees, had to compose itself again.†-Bulstrode adds, some two months hence, 'The Protector being good-natured, and sensible of his harsh proceeding against Whitlocke and Widdrington,' made them Commissioners of the Treasury, which was a kind of compensation. There, with Montague and Sydenham, they had a moderately good time of it; but saw, not without a sigh, the Great Seal remain with Lisle who durst obey, and for colleague to him a certain well-known Nathaniel Fiennes, a shrewd man, Lord Sây and Sele's son, who knew nothing of that business, says Bulstrode, nay Lisle himself knew nothing of it till he learned it from us.‡

Whitlocke, p. 624 (April, 1656). † Ibid., pp. 602-S.

+ Ibid., p. 608.

Console thyself, big heart. How seldom is sublime virtue rewarded in this world!

June 3d, 1655. This day come sad news out of Piedmont ; confirmation of bad rumors there had been, which deeply affects all pious English hearts, and the Protector's most of all. It appears the Duke of Savoy had, not long since, decided on having certain poor Protestant subjects of his converted at last to the Catholic Religion. Poor Protestant people, who dwell in the obscure Valleys' of Lucerna, of Perosa and St. Martin,' among the feeders of the Po, in the Savoy Alps: they are thought to be descendants of the old Waldenses; a pious inoffensive people; dear to the hearts and imaginations of all Protestant men. These, it would appear, the Duke of Savoy, in the past year, undertook to himself to get converted; for which object he sent friars to preach among them. The friars could convert nobody; one of the friars, on the contrary, was found assassinated,—signal to the rest that they had better take themselves away. The Duke thereupon sent other missionaries: six regiments of Catholic soldiers; and an order to the People of the Valleys either to be converted straightway, or quit the country at once. They could not be converted all at once: neither could they quit the country well; the month was December; among the Alps; and it was their home for immemorial years! Six regiments, however, say they must; six Catholic regiments;—and three of them are Irish, made of the banished Kurisees we knew long since; whose humor, on such an occasion, we can guess at! It is admitted they behaved 'with little ceremony;' it is not to be denied they behaved with much bluster and violence: ferocities, atrocities, to the conceivable amount, still stand in authentic black-on-white against them. The Protestants of the Valleys were violently driven out of house and home, not without slaughters and tortures by the road;-had tc seek shelter in French Dauphiné or where they could; and, in mute or spoken supplication, appeal to all generous hearts of men. The saddest confirmation of the actual banishment, the actual violences done, arrives at Whitehall this day 3d June, 1655.*

* Letter of the French Ambassador (in Thurloe, iii., 470)

Pity is perennial: "Ye have compassion on one another,"is it not notable, beautiful? In our days too, there are Polish Balls and such like; but the pity of the Lord Protector and Puritan England for these poor Protestants among the Alps is not to be measured by ours. The Lord Protector is melted into tears, and roused into sacred fire. This day the French treaty, not unimportant to him, was to be signed: this day he refuses to sign it till the King and Cardinal undertake to assist him in getting right done in those poor Valleys. He sends the poor exiles 2,000%. from his own purse; appoints a day of Humiliation and a general Collection over England for that object ;has, in short, decided that he will bring help to these poor men ; that England and he will see them helped and righted. How Envoys were sent; how blind Milton wrote Letters to all Protestant States, calling on them for co-operation; how the French Cardinal was shy to meddle, and yet had to meddle, and compel the Duke of Savoy, much astonished at the business, to do justice and not what he liked with his own: all this recorded in the unreadablest stagnant deluges of old Official Correspondence,t is very certain, and ought to be fished therefrom and made more apparent.

In all which, as we can well believe, it was felt that the Lord Protector had been the Captain of England, and had truly expressed the heart and done the will of England ;—in this, as in sorne other things. Milton's Sonnet and Six Latin Letters are still readable; the Protector's Act otherwise remains mute hitherto. Small damage to the Protector, if no other suffer thereby! Let it stand here as a symbol to us of his foreign policy in general; which had this one object, testified in all manner of negotiations and endeavors, noticed by us and not noticed, To make England Queen of the Protestant world; she, if there were no worthier Queen. To unite the Protestant world of struggling Light against the Papist world of potent Darkness. To stand upon

God's Gospel, as the actual intrinsic Fact of this Practical Earth ; and defy all potency of Devil's Gospels on the strength of that. Wherein, again, Puritan England felt gradually that this Olive:

.* Thurloe, ubi supra.

†Thurloe (much of vol. iii); Vaughan's Protectorate, &c

was her Captain; and in heart could not but say, Long life to him; as we now do.

Let us note one other small private trait of Oliver in these months; and then hasten to the few Letters we have. Dull Bulstrode has jotted down: 'The Protector feasted the Commissioners for Approbation of Ministers.** Means the Commission of Triers ;† whom he has to dinner with him in Whitehall. Old Sir Francis, Dr. Owen and the rest. 'He sat at table with them; and was cheerful and familiar in their company:' Hope you are getting on, my friends: how this is, and how that is? By such kind of little caresses,' adds Bulstrode, he gained much upon many persons.' Me, as a piece of nearly matchless law-learning and general wisdom, I doubt he never sufficiently respected; though he knew my fat qualities too, and was willing to use and *ecognize them!—

Whitlocke, April, 1655

† Antea, pp. 74, 75.

LETTERS CXXXVI.-CXL.

FIVE Letters of somewhat miscellaneous character; which we must take in mass, and with no word of Commentary that can be spared. Straggling accidental light beams, accidentally preserved to us, and still transiently illuminating this feature or that of the Protector and his business,―let them be welcome in the darkness for what they are.

LETTER CXXXVI.

BESIDES the great Sea-Armament that sailed from Portsmouth last December, and went Westward, with sealed orders, which men begin to guess were for the Spanish West Indies, the Protector had another Fleet fitted out under Blake, already famous as a Sea-General; which has been in the Mediterranean, during these late months; exacting reparation for damages, old or recent, done to the English Nation or to individuals of it, by the Duke of Florence or by others; keeping an eye on Spain too, and its Plate Fleets, apparently with still ulterior objects.

The Duke of Florence has handsomely done justice; the Dey of Tunis was not so well advised, and has repented of it. There are Letters, dated March last, though they do not come till June; 'Letters that General Blake demanding at Tunis reparation for the losses of the English from Turkish Pirates, the Dey answered him with scorn, and bade him behold his Castles.' Blake did behold them; 'sailed into the Harbor within musket-shot of them; and though the shore was planted with great guns, he se. upon the Turkish ships, fired nine of them,' and brought the Dey to reason, we apprehend.*

* Whitlocke, p. 608 (8 June, 1655).